Vengeance in Vienna
by minicinnabun
Summary: Spy Au. Elizabeta and Gilbert had been together three years, pursued each other for two, and dedicated themselves in one. Nothing could get between them, or so they thought. Between the death of Gilbert's longtime friend and the introduction of a new agent into the field things get... complicated. Updates Mondays and Wednesdays
1. London

"You know, you don't always have to leave so early in the morning, this is your house too, Elizabeta."  
>The Hungarian looked over her shoulder at her admittedly groggy partner sitting up in the bed, his face in a semi bemused expression partially hidden by the bedhead of his snow white hair. "I won't gape or anything, I've seen you naked a lot of times, and when we first began I saw you in the morning a lot of times. I don't see what's wrong with waking up with me anymore."<p>

Her eyes went to the floor, focusing on putting on her various undergarments, the fabric of her nylons nearly tearing from strain of her reaction, her mouth pursed slightly as she tried to think of a response that wouldn't involve her upsetting him by giving up her secrets.

"...Do we have some kind of problem in our relationship 'Lizabeta? Is that why you do this?"

She could practically feel the uncomfortable fear coming off him, she attempted to divert his thoughts as she pulled her uppermost undergarment on, hoping that the expanse of her neck would be too much for the man to bear and he'd lapse into his regular self once more. "Could you fasten it? I can never get the last hook."

"...Yeah, of course."

She brushed her hair over her shoulder, closing her eyes as she waited for him to draw near, her breath peaking when she felt the cold fingers brush against her neck, traveling down to her shoulder and to the clasp. He pressed close against her, his head resting lightly on her back.

"I love you, you know that Elizabeta?" He looked up as he finished the clasp, his lips brushing gently against the back of her neck, "I just wonder if you love me too sometimes."

"Of course I love you, I'm just…" She sighed, turning around to face him as she pulled some half hearted lie out of herself, "I'm just trying to motivate you to come to work… Imagine how much longer you'd take if you knew you could just wake up and see me rather than make it to work to see me first thing. You'd never show up, your brother would have to fire you or demote you at the very least."

"I wouldn't care, I could make up for it by training recruits every single day if that meant I got to wake up next to you again." He groaned, scooting even closer to her.

_God there had to be a way out of there, she was missing her appointment with Feliks.._

"How about you wake up on time every day and I take care of your little recruit today?"

She hated it.  
>The feeling that everyone could probably tell what she'd done the second she walked in beside him at exactly eight o'clock, the way he nonchalantly cast a grin over his shoulder and invited her for lunch at break time while every passerby seemed to stare.<p>

But most of all she hated the shit eating grin on Feliks's face the second she passed his cubicle to get into hers.

It would only be a matter of seconds before-

"Soooooooooo," _Right on the money, _"Someone was late for her time at the shooting range today, wonder what happened there."

She groaned, burying her head in her paperwork.

"I wonder if we can put two and two together here," He continued," Elizabeta is walking funny, has a slight pinkish hue, and Gilbert is smiling like jesus himself just shook his hand."

"Auuugh!" She buried her head further, attempting to imagine herself anywhere but here, doing anything but the morning of shame.

"I'd say someone had sex."

"He lasted longer than I thought he would, okay?" She grumbled, finally lifting her head to send him a look that said that one, she was willing to throw those papers at his head so hard he'd several skull fissures and two, she knew how ridiculous it all was.

"I just don't get why if your boyfriend who you have been with for three years mind you, is lead operative of the espionage department, you can't just get him to train you. Like he does love you more than life itself it seems."

"He loves me too much, if I'm going to get anywhere I can't have someone who's going to baby me teaching me how to do this stuff. I need someone like you, honest and unwavering, otherwise I'll be at a desk job my whole life." She shook her head, gathering her papers up in her hands to ready them for violence at any impending snark… or for the mail room.

"Hey, being a squick isn't that bad! I mean, wouldn't do it if I had half of my leg back but.." He grimaced, choosing his next words carefully, "You know, less dangerous with good pay and the chance to google like ninety percent of what you need to know."

"Plus you get to meet super hot guys who are like totally good in bed and have great asses!" She imitated a little bit too loudly in her highest school girl voice possible, flinching when the back of a file made contact with her head a few mere seconds later.

"Good to know you're looking, but god knows you've already got the best ass in the business, girlie."

_And the pity party has increased to three._

"Oh Emma, you sex kitten, nice to see you're up. We're talking about Elizabeta's drive to a failing relationship via miscommunication and a desperate need to be an agent and get her arm blown off."

Emma moaned, draping herself over the back walls of Elizabeta's cubicle and earning a grunt from the squick in the cubicle behind her. "More like your vagina blown away, you're going to get so much dick you won't even be able to pee in between helpings."

Feliks nodded, raising his hands in agreement, "Amen, woman."

"Let me tell you, me and Tonio are open now and that's all he ever talks about. How many fucking sluts he's done in his travels. I'd like for him to come home and say something nice like, 'oh Emma you look so nice with your new hair,' or, 'oh Emma of course I love your sex noises.' But no, it's just, 'oh Emma I did this Russian chick.' What am I, chopped liver? I'm a nice girl, I should have a nice guy for once-"

"Honey, talking about Elizabeta." He rolled his eyes, gesturing to the Hungarian set before them.

"Oh, her. I think she should go for it. I mean, you're not an agent too then he's not serious with you." She pushed off the wall, moving to sit atop Elizabeta's desk and gesture about three cubicles over. "I mean look at Frenchie, you didn't hear it from me but, the second she went on pregnancy leave from the field she just about cried. She spends every day worrying about what's going to be next and when he's gonna come home with some Russian hooker or something, and to top it off her brother got murdered last month and she can't be out there doing anything about it." She grimaced, reaching around in the pockets of her pantsuit in search of something. "I mean Francis was a great guy and now here his sister is, sitting there waiting for some news of what happened… Just seems," Finally she withdrew a cigarette from her inner breast pocket, leaning over for Elizabeta to withdraw a lighter and light it for her.  
>When she had finally begun her 'happy' stick she returned to what she was saying.<p>

"Wrong."

The group nodded to themselves, the silence quickly overtaking at the mention of their fallen comrade.

Elizabeta was the first to break the silence, her sarcasm on full power as she responded, "So now that we got the idea of Gilbert cheating and then dying in my head, is there anything else we'd like to bring to the table?"

"I think he's going to propose soon-"

She slammed her hands on the table, casting a sarcastic grin at him as she shoved herself upwards. "-Thank you Feliks, I'm going to go now. I'm going to go and see my cheating, dying, overbearing, and apparently on-his-deathbed boyfriend. I am going to go see him and I am going to go tell him all about the next mission that he can fuck sluts on, _have a good day guys!"_ She scooped up the files Emma bought her, flicking them off as she turned on her heel and charged out of her cubicle, right into her boyfriend.

"...Sluts?"  
>She linked her arms through his, practically dragging him away from her waving friends, "Just go, go and don't look back on them, they feed on it."<p> 


	2. Berlin

"So why exactly am I fucking sluts?" He questioned once they reached the safety of his office, a slight grin playing on his lips.

"Because you're an agent, and that's what agents do, fuck sluts apparently." She rolled her eyes, throwing herself atop his desk.

"You must be a pretty good slut then, because otherwise I wouldn't keep coming back." He grinned, running an appreciative hand up her thigh.

She slapped his hand away, "Don't."

Giving her a wolfish smile he pressed his lips on her inner thigh, inciting a small freak out as she threw her folder at him and shot to the other end of the desk.

"You piece of shit!"

He laughed, gathering up the stray papers from the ground, "Couldn't resist."

"You may be in the only office without windows but we are in a spy agency you fuckass!"

Shaking his head he took a seat beside her on the desk, "Calm down, I wouldn't do anything here, besides…" He pinched her ass, holding down his laugh as she squeaked, "History is made at night, Liz."

She stood, shouting indignantly, "Are you just about done sexually harassing me?! You do have a job to do!"

Now was his turn to throw himself upon his desk and groan.

She swatted him, inciting an even longer groan. "Do you know how many people would kill for your job?"

"Do you know how many people have killed for my job?"

"Exactly, now shut up and listen." A roll of her eyes, she grabbed the folder from him with a flourish of the hand. "You're going to Berlin-"

"Send the German to Germany, original Luddy."

"To look at connections to what happened to Francis."

_That got his attention. _

His hand shot out and grabbed the folder, eyes glaring at Elizabeta as if daring her to be lying about it.

"It's true-"

"I don't doubt that," He interrupted as he moved to stand, "But he shouldn't have put this in your hands." He glanced down at the folder, taking a deep breath before directing his attention back to her. "I think you need to go."

"What?" She crinkled her nose, reaching for the file once more before being so rudely pushed towards the door. "Gil, this isn't like you-"

"And being nosy isn't like you, it's time to leave." He continued pushing against her, finding her attempting to anchor herself to the floor rather annoying.

"I'm your squick and your girlfriend, I have right to know what you're doing!"

"And you had ample time to figure out just that, but you didn't, so now you must leave." With finality he shoved her out the door, causing her to land on her hands and knees as he slammed the door shut in the background.

Pissed.

That was the only word she could use to describe herself.

Elizabeta Hedervary was pissed, and it showed.

With the events of the hours prior, the addition of overtime to her already heavy workload, and the fact that the copy machine on her floor had decided to end its life in a fury of sparks the second she tried to scan in her files;

Elizabeta Hedervary was pissed and taking an elevator to the eleventh floor from her comfy third floor office just so she could copy some goddamn files on shit that didn't even fucking matter.

Means to say nearly every person who had successfully summoned said elevator had promptly walked away when the doors opened to her.

Except for_ one._

Brunette, tall, moled, four eyed, dressy as hell in his stupid armani suit that likely cost his stupid face too much stupid money, and wearing a stupid dumb INTELLECT nametag not dissimilar to her POWER nametag.  
>Why did he even need a name tag? He looked to be such a piece of shit that no one would even bother to learn his name. Elizabeta didn't fucking care about his name, therefore no one else should!<p>

_Fucking prissy piece of shit thinks he can stand in my elevator, _Elizabeta thought to herself, _on my fucking time.  
>Fuck him.<em>

The prissy piece of shit in question had also managed to break one of the five true rules of elevator riding, he stood more than three feet close to her in an uncrowded elevator.

And this itself would not do.

"I'm sorry, but does the sensation of the angry waves I'm giving off here give you a boner or are you really just that stupid?"

The taller brunette looked upon the other with a face of shock, wondering how the woman before him managed to simultaneously prove herself to be both rude and illiterate in the span of five minutes of elevator riding.

"Yeah you, priss shit. If you can't tell I'm having a bit of a shitty day, boyfriend's a piece of shit and all, so can you just back off?"

And now shock turned into absolute horror, what had originally been five minutes of trying to think of ways to speak to the pretty young woman beside him had now turned into what would undoubtedly be ten minutes of said woman cussing him out. Roderich Edelstein was no doubt great with women. "...Excuse me?"

"Prissy piece of shit," She announced to no one in particular,"I know you're an agent or something and I'm just a squick but," She shoved him, causing him to stumble back a good foot or so, "Give me some fucking space."

"Excuse me miss…," He eyed the woman up and down, looking for the flash of silver of her nametag, "Hedervary, but there is no way I could have know such a thing from one gaze. I don't even know what a squick is for goodness sake!"

"It's a squint, a googlebeast, a techie, a comp, the libraries- Learn your terms, Rookie!"

He looked the woman up and down one more, taking in what exactly she was wearing so he could better understand what she meant. Pastel yellow short sleeved button up covered by a white cardigan, lilac skirt that fell halfway down her thigh, black nylons, and white ballet flats. Too modest and plain to be agent, not extravagant enough for head-

Oh.

"You're office intelligence for the POWER division."

"Would you like a cookie? Maybe two since we have five more floors to go?"

Okay, now he was amused. "You're going to INTELLECT to?"

"Print copies, ours just up and quit."

"Ah, be careful. I heard the head there's a very disagreeable man."

"I can take him any day."

_Three more floors to go.  
><em> "Is that so?"

"Let's just say they don't call it power for nothing."

_Two._

"Even the 'squicks'?"

"Please, I'm so close to being an agent I don't even count."

_One._

"Well then, for one so close to agency I believe a close date for such an event is required, I believe my secretary will be of use for such an event."

_Wait, what?_

_Ding._

"It's been a pleasure being sworn at Miss Hedervary, but I must sadly depart. Feel free to make your copies and cry over your beloved if you so wish, just do not waste all of the ink."

If one were to somehow hook a tv up to Elizabeta's brain they would likely find two words flashing repeatedly today, "Fucking Gilbert."

It was his fault she'd missed shooting practice today with Feliks which would have provided some much needed release after their argument last night, his fault that she was irritated about work in general due to her lack of file viewing, probably his fault that the copier was broke, and definitely his fault that she somehow just managed to tell the head of the INTELLECT department that she was going to kick his ass.

The man she'd likely have to interview with for a position in two weeks, after she took her agent exam.

One of her few chances at working as an agent in a department where she would not be known as the head agents fuckbuddy.

Fuck the files.

She waited until the doors were completely shut, a plastic smile painted on her face for all the intellect workers who might pass by.

And waited.

And waited.

Until the doors closed.

Taking a deep breath, she went rigid.

And then screamed, over and over. Just his name and his alone.

And when the doors opened once more, safely at her floor, she walked out.

She walked out with a smile befitting a doll, and she was merry and pleasant to all that were around her.

Until she reached her desk.

And then, carefully turning a picture frame of her and her lover facedown on the desk, she turned with the most shit eating grin she could possibly muster to Feliks.

"I wonder if he knows just how much he pisses me off."

Slowly the man turned his head up from his work, shooting a questioning look to her. "What?"

"I wonder if Gilbert knows just how much I fucking hate him."

"Wait, are we doing this right now? No kidding or anything?" He grimaced, slightly afraid of the consequences if this was not to be true. As she nodded slowly he stood, calling out to Emma from halfway across the room, "Emma, come here, we've got files that are long overdue!"

"So long overdue."

His face glimmered excitedly, as he hurried the already rushing Emma with a call of, "So many files!"

It was perhaps the fastest they've ever seen her move.

"I'm here, I'm here, tell me all about it, what's the dish? Where's the scoop? Who's pregnant? It's not Lizzie is it? Oh god tell me it's not Lizzie! I told her, did I not tell you? Protection is the best foreplay. I swear I did, Feliks, I swear on-"

"Emma, the day has finally come, we're bitching about Gilbert." Feliks interrupted.

"-Long live the queen, Luddy and whoever else is keeping me employed!"Emma exclaimed, climbing atop the merge of the cubicles as if that somehow registered in anyone's mind as a good idea, and somehow managing to stay there. "The boss's brother has finally lost his hold."

Elizabeta pushed back in her computer chair, her fake grin still in play. Gilbert may work on the same floor, his office may be a few yards away, and she may have no way of knowing whether or not he was in there but she did not care.

As she repeated all the sins that he had caused within the past twelve hours, from snoring in his sleep to touching her in his office; She felt a surge of power that had not been present in a long time.

And from afar someone else felt a trickle of a plan coming through.


	3. Hamburg

"So what, you're leaving?" She looked over her shoulder at the male figure lurking in the doorway, his body somehow managing to encompass a good deal of her cooking light.

"10 hours from now, at first day break. I'm flying into Hamburg and driving down to Berlin for cover's sake." Simple, plain, straight to it. A little unlike him, but Gilbert had his off days as well.

She grinned over her shoulder nonetheless, poking him in the ribs with her spatula, "Better make sure to feed you then, lest you die of starvation in Germany for the next week."

"Month, I'm gone for a month." Face still straight, he wasn't kidding.

A month, in Germany, alone.

_Or mostly alone, _she thought to herself.

Approaching edge she asked him with a slightly trembling voice, "Going to visit anyone while you're there?"

"Lili."

Of course.

Of course it was Lili, pretty and even tempered Lili. The young Lili with the bright green eyes that Gilbert states are what he looks for in women, with the beautiful golden hair and the long elegant neck. The thin girl with a happy disposition so blissfully unaware of the world both of them knew.

The one he could visit and pretend to be normal with.

Her grip tightened on the spatula, going back to messing with the food once more. "Are you still hungry?"

He nodded from the doorway, noticing the change in disposition almost immediately. The topic always had this affect on her. "Are you alright?"

"No," she admitted.

"She doesn't mean anything, I found you first, that's the way it is. You'll see that when the matter of Francis is resolved, that these past few months have just been a rough patch that we've gotten through, this morning and the office are just examples of that." He sighed, removing himself from the door and taking the few short steps that would lead him to her. "Anything I said then isn't going to matter, I'm just coping."

Then, when he was drunk and showed up at the front door. When he looked her in the eyes and told her that if he had met Lili before they would likely not even be he confessed the sin of lusting over the barely eighteen Lili but promised not to act on such impulses.

She drew out her words carefully as she felt his arms begin to encompass her, "Feliks said that even the worst of relationships can have plenty of good times," _His office laying across his desk, the nights curled in his chest, the Freudian slip of Mr. & ;_ "Do you believe that's true?"

"He doesn't know shit about you and me or love."

"Maybe he does." Her voice raised slightly, his grip slackening slightly from the statement. "Maybe we need to stop that things between us are gauge by sexuality and responses to the stimulus of desire."

He spun her around in his arms, cornering her against the stovetop in a matter of seconds. "Maybe you need to stop being such a squick and stop over analyzing everything."

Now that set her off.

"I tried, don't you remember? I asked you to help and you didn't! You told me it was too dangerous, that I was too delicate and beautiful to be an agent along with another pile of shit to go with it." She hadn't even realized she was screaming until he flinched, and yet some part of her didn't care. "Poor little Elizabeta all alone in the office, reading file after file, it's a good thing I protected her from her dreams while I'm out here fucking this minor whenever I go to mainland Europe! God am I glad I saved myself from her becoming an agent-"

"You stop that!" Great, he was yelling too, now it was a yellingfest, great for the neighbors to hear from the safety of their own apartments.

"-Well jokes on you Gilbert, because Feliks? The one who doesn't know shit about us? He knows shit about me! He knows so much shit about me! But here's the great part, oh god the best," She leaned in, discarding her spatula into the skillet of chicken to place both hands on his face for dramatic effect, "He's training me."

If you were to peer in one Gilbert Beilschmidt's head at this moment, you would see the cogs stop. You would see the cogs stop and then suddenly start again, pushing forward at a much faster speed as he stared at her and slowly began to back off.

"Get out."

"Is it surprising? The fact that I can hurt you too Gilbert?"

"Get out or I'll hurt you."

"New flash buddy, you already have." A burning smell permeated the air, and yet no one really seemed to care.

"Her skin's soft, there's no wrinkles or rough spots, she's too young for that unlike you." The smell of burning chicken wasn't the worst thing to hit the air.

Any ego or sense of self building up within her had broken down again, she was the powerless squick once more, at beck and command of her agent.

"Her hair's short but light as cornsilk, it runs through my hands easily and feels like the finest of cloth."

_No._

"Her eyes are green, yet unlike yours. They're pure, innocent, yet tempting all the same. When she looks at me she spreads the joy that you no doubt long to have."

"-Stop."

"Her mouth is perfect, like a porcelain doll, the words she says-"

The skillet hit the floor at full force, hot grease and juices spilling every which way.

"Stop."

They slept in the same bed that night, god knows why.

Back to back for hours on end like long ago when they were two strangers who were just trying to make it through.

She gave in at fifteen minutes to five, burying her face in the white tanktop covering his torso, her arms desperately tangling themselves around him as if holding on to their relationship as well as his person.

She didn't know when she started sobbing but she assumed it must have been just around the minute when he turned around and wrapped his arms around her in return.

And for that moment they were not yet broken, but bent.

Until she woke up.

Five am and he was already gone, no note to say where they stood and a month to lay in wonder.

And to think just hours before they'd been playing on his desk.

She wasn't sure anymore if she was mad from the day before or just relieved that it was over, but her legs fell over the side in a sudden heaviness of sleep depravity and a numb feeling washed over in a matter of seconds.

"I'll be fine." She stated to herself, reaching for the phone as the day began.

It was time to text Feliks she supposed.

* * *

><p>Author's notes:<p>

A technical difficulty prevented me from posting this last Wednesday, I'll be making up for it by posting tomorrow as well.

I currently feel like this story is moving too fast and will be dragging out the chapters a bit more latter on, I'm only rushing so much to get the plot completely set up.


	4. Stowmarket

The terrace was vacant in all of it's splendor, the once lively shop having faded into the background in the absence of tourists coming in for the summer season. It's aged metal tables casting intricate shadows on the old cobble stone as the romantic vines hanging from the side stone walls swayed gently in the wind.

However for such a lovely place, it was host to such a horrible conversation.

"So what, you're alone now or?"

Sitting across from a tall blonde man with hair falling just barely below his ears, Elizabeta was the vision of beauty and grace as she grunted heavily attempting to copy down a vast array of notes from the man.

"Do you need a place to stay? Are you moving out?" Feliks asked quizzingly, attempting and failing to compete with her notes for eye contact.

"I don't know." She clicked her tongue, her eyes skimming for yet another word she deemed important so that she may better define it latter. She had a very narrow window of time for which she could study and take her test, the absence of Gilbert providing the perfect timing to figure out the rest of her life. So long as she tested while he was away there would be no interruption, and she could begin to figure out her residence and other things in case his return brought about the clarity of an ended relationship.

"Well, I mean, Emma's in the guest room but I do have a couch, you know." He frowned, leaning towards her from across the table, the wind picking up slightly behind him.

Of course it was cold, as many beautiful things were.

_Of course._

"I don't know where I stand anymore, Feliks."

"You should get out of there, get some air."

His notes became all the more interesting, her nose practically touching them as she slowly scribble the words on the paper.

"Elizabeta, I know you said you're numb but," A deep breath, he licked his lips. "It's gonna hit you some time."

"Make the couch then," A swish of the wrist, she moved to stand. "I'll move out."

It's funny how words can taste so bitter yet evoke no feeling at all.

"So what, you're trying to figure out your life?" Emma's voice rang through the room, the small cellphone on the bed somehow managing to project her to every corner of the room.

"Like you? No. In my own way? Yes." Drawer after drawer was being pulled out and thrown to the ground, the contents occasionally spilling out from the sheer fuck it all with which they were placed down.

She begun throwing things into the box, everything she could reach and everything she couldn't. At this point she didn't even distinguish Gucci from Prada, just threw any and all clothing like the pieces of fabric they were.

"Maybe you're not even broken up, maybe you're just being stupid. I mean what, you had a fight and he was gone in the morning? He's a spy, they always leave."

"It's not that, it's that I want to be ready just in case things end, maybe get some time apart."

A silence, Elizabeta accidentally ripped one of the shirts on the drawer by jerking it out of the drawer.

"..Fuck."

"Listen I understand where you are right now, but things aren't over yet."

If the first rip counted as an accident the second should as well, even if caused by frustration. She decided to leave the shirt and moved on to the closet, gathering as many hangers as she could in her arms.

"What if I want things to be over? Not everyone's desperately hanging on like you."

Wrong move.

"You don't even know what you're talking about." Granting herself the coldest reactions she could get seemed to be Elizabeta's new thing within the past twenty four hours, the fact that it was Emma was only worse.

"You're right, I don't. I have no idea." Flat, admitting.

Even with her reaction's dramatization being cut in half by the lack of visual medium Emma could still put on a show. "Sometimes I feel like I'm not even in a relationship anymore."

"I wish I wasn't in a relationship anymore."

Alien, foreign, a crazy concept, she could feel Emma gape from the other end of the line.

"I'm just saying, I could be a whole lot further in my life if stupid 22 year old me didn't fall head over heels for mister suave the second he showed any interest."

"Are you even in a relationship anymore?"

"It's really unclear." On of Gil's suits caught on her hangar, she resolved to let it just fall to the ground.

"Have you called him?"

"We have a no call rule for missions."

"But things are bad enough that you're staying at Feliks's with me."

More issues with Gil's clothing, it seeming to be almost as overprotective of her possessions and the mysterious box as he was of her. "Who really shouldn't be staying there either."

"Antonio kicked me out of my permanent residence with the induction of the open relationship rule, said it felt too serious." A tongue click and popping noise on Emma's end, Elizabeta could almost imagine her applying another coat of lipstick. "He brings me into this country two years ago to live a better life and then kicks me out at the sign of a hot redhead, ironic huh?"

_Weird._

_The first word that bothered to pop in Elizabeta's mind._

"It's really unlike him to be honest."

"Yeah well, a lot of people don't act like themselves anymore honey, death does that."

_That it does, _she figured, _that it does._

Clothing, romance novels, cosmetics and cosmetic brushes, hair accessories, her share of the pots and pans, her bath items, her charger, and her pillows; She was missing something.

"Hold on a bit Emma, I got to look for something."

Pictures, that's all she needed, the shoebox of pictures. It'd be over her dead body that he would be allowed to keep her precious memories.

Pictures of them, pictures of Feliks, Emma the first time they ever got her out of her shell, Francine's baby shower, Feliciano and Ludwig's wedding; Those were hers, not his, those were the memories she kept.

Gilbert found pictures to trivial.

Yet also apparently too interesting to put away properly.

They'd moved away from their spot atop the fridge, migrated somewhere out of her sight.

Numbness turned to anger, she began to tear through the apartment searching up and down for it.

The bottom of the bookshelf? No.

The top of the nightstand? No.

Near the vent? No.

That left under the bed as the last potential place he would place it.

She kneeled down slowly to look for it, suddenly becoming acutely aware of the fact that being alone in the apartment gave her the strangest of feelings.

_It was probably nothing._

She shook her head to herself, placing her head to lay flat against the wooden panels.

Dust, dust, and more dust. She couldn't really see well, not like she usually would, the normal Gilbert would have vacuumed the under bed out. She shoved her hand underneath it, immediately feeling something hard and solid connect with her hand along with a mound of something else.

"I swear to god if this is fucking mold Gilbert, I will kill you."

She moved her hand slowly, almost wishing to not see what the mound could be, and almost praying that it was some how unconnected to her box.

"Please for the love of god..."

Emma could be heard cackling from the phone in the distance.

She pulled the whole box out finally, relieved for it to have been what she was looking for and a little bit of it not at all what she wanted.

Thick silver with an almost pitch fork shaped body to it, an earring unlike any that she would wear.

Lili Zwingli sat patiently in the direct way of the unloading zone of the train upon her bench, her smile a little brighter and her bag a little heavier as she seemingly uncrossed and recrossed her legs in fits of nervousness.

If one were to watch her over the course of her day they would realize that she had stood at said trainstation for exactly one hour, twenty five minutes, and thirty two seconds.

Even if one were to not they would surely notice the uncomfortable and long lasting proximity of one short platinum blonde beside her. Standing just close enough but also just far enough from the proximity of her bench to elude from a certain idea of normalcy of which she knew simply not.

If Lili knew she was no good she did not show, for she simply trained ahead and stared for the arrival of her love any second.

However if one to look closely and stare without fear they might just notice an object missing from the platinum blonde one's ear.

And the way Lili clutched her bag being simply not normal.

7


	5. Munich

He could hardly think when the doors opened. People surrounded him and pushed through him to exit the train, yet he remained stationary as he thought of the night before, his whole mind cloudy with remorse and images of Elizabeta.

She just had to make it so damn hard.

As much as he loved her, as much as he needed her, he felt that she just thrived on upsetting him.

Not a word after their fight, sleeping with her back to him yet giving him mixed signals when she wrapped herself in him, somehow managing to be asleep peacefully after the night before-

Berlin was welcome, very welcome in fact.

In Berlin he could bury himself in Lili, he could smell her sweet sense and feel her sweet chaste touch.

He could pretend that Elizabeta had never happened, that he never met the girl with the loud laugh and occasionally cocky attitude, that he hadn't gone out of his way all those years ago to kiss her up against the wall in the faculty room, that the tingling he felt whenever their eyes met was just some miracle of circumstance.

He could just be Gilbert and she be Lili.

The Lili who waited for him through night and day, who wrote to him weekly and sent him gifts she thought he'd enjoy, who loved him unconditionally.

The woman who cared.

And as Elizabeta liked to remind him, was barely a woman.

And yet despite that was twice what Elizabeta would ever be.

When he saw her his heart did things no man could ever imagine, when she stood across the train deck his ears could hardly hear and his eyes could hardly see.

It was love and for once it was easy.

He held his breath the second red collided with green, a cacophony of lights and sounds separating them yet she remaining the same.

Long blonde hair cascading down her back, bright green eyes filled with joy at his arrival, a small smile brimming her lips.

Lili, his Lili.

Suddenly all of it faded away, the pain of the year prior, the arguments with Elizabeta, the distrust for Feliks; He was finally home.

She excitedly rushed towards him, fighting through the crowds as he resigned to meet her halfway, his own heart beating through his chest at the chance of a reunion with the girl-

No, his princess.

They collided in the middle of the platform, Gilbert easily scooping her up into his arms and holding her like she was the most precious thing in the world, Lili just barely managing to get her arms around his neck due to her smaller stature.

To anyone else on the platform they would appear to be a perfect couple, but restrictions were in place due to Gilbert's current relationship state and Lili sadly went with them.

But, no more.

He stared down at her like he had many times before, unbelieving how easy it was to be with her, how just simple glances and movements of body could form a language entirely their own. There was no fighting, no screaming or crying, just the two forever embraced in each other's arms.

Her big beautiful eyes blinked up at her just once and he pressed his lips into hers, months of need pressing between them, his whole mouth feeling as if it was electric as he allowed himself to indulge in one of life's pleasures he had so adamantly been denied by his lover prior.

And tried to push Elizabeta as far out of his mind as possible.

Yet despite this, out of the corner of his eye, just for a second, he swore he saw her.

And that is when he finally pulled back.

"I can't let you sleep alone on the couch, not when there's a queen sized bed here." Emma easily shutdown Elizabeta's insistence of being alone, throwing the woman's pillow on the bed next to hers as the other struggled to grab it and remove herself entirely.

If high school girls could share a bed for a slumber party so could they.

"Plus I want to tell you stories, it's like the only thing that makes me feel even semi useful in this trying time." Simple yet constantly abstract, Emma. Elizabeta could almost swear Emma just enjoyed telling stories to hear her own voice.

"And keep Feliks up all night?" Elizabeta shook her head, throwing herself over the bed to lay at her now designated spot. "No thanks."

"Not even what I've learned about Feliks?"She rolled in next to her, grabbing her arm and drawing her way too close, "You know you want toooo~."

"You know I don't~."

Pouting, Emma at up, glaring down at the girl beside her. "Why is it okay for us to know everything about you, but you to not know anything about us, huh? What about our hopes and dreams, our pasts and secrets? It's like we're background characters or something! Or even worse, supporting cast!"

She had a point, fuck.

"Well what's your backstory then, huh? What makes Emma tick?"

A grin, she'd won.

"Well, you see, it's kind of a long story."


	6. Flanders

"Our shop was a contrast of primary colours all in mind numbing brightness passed down from generations on my father's side only to end up in my grandmother's hands. In my younger years this provided little to no difficulty for anything else, but around the time I turned sixteen the woman had aged to the point where it had become a major concern for my parents and I had begun to work in the shop far away from both of them. That was when I first saw him-"

"Wait, what kind of shop was this?"

"A bakery, dumbass." Emma rolled her eyes, throwing a pillow at Elizabeta. before clearing her throat.

"What the fuck was Antonio doing at a bakery in Belgium?" Interrupted again.

"I never asked!"

And she began again.

"Again, I was sixteen and he was nineteen and looked to be from a family far richer than mine. I later learned this was because he was a new agent and dumb to the ways of spying but- He left quite an impression on younger me, made me feel embarrassed to be working dough on the counter with flour in my hair and down the front of my red dress. I almost didn't want to take his order-"

"But you did."

"My grandmother was a very strict woman, I didn't want to get the shit kicked out of me." If she had a cigarette the sentence likely would have been punctuated by a hard blow, another attempt to make smoke rings. "So I took his order, nasty and covered in flour and dough, he wasn't really impressed the first time to be honest, nor the second, or the third, but he did keep coming back."

Elizabeta cocked an eyebrow, shifting forward slightly. She was tempted to ask if that didn't count as a sign that he was impressed, considering the fact that there are thousands of other bakeries in Belgium, but held her tongue.

"He liked our apple tarts." Ah, an answer.

"Anyway, I was just young and stupid at the time and my brothers were so far away it didn't even matter. We stayed like that for a while, him buying and me baking, his clothing getting more casual and me attempting to look better than I really was. I didn't really know what he was, I think I just assumed a businessman or something, but he was in Belgium for about three months the first time. And then he just poofed."

"Poof? Descriptive Emma."An eyeroll only to get elbowed in the ribs.

"He disappeared for about a year, no word as to why, he just left. He hardly even talked to me the first time he was there so I didn't think much of it. He had business in Belgium and that's all I know to this day." If Feliks hadn't had a no smoking law in his apartment? She could see it, all the punctuating blows, the drags, the yellowed grin. Emma looked healthier without it, but part of her expressiveness was gone.

"When he came back that's when he started to talk, don't think he trusted me the first time around. He was probably one of the first guys to ever talk to me to be honest, but day after day he came in and bought a treat, thought he was loaded the way he was spending money." Grin. " My grandma thought he was really special, but I'm pretty sure he was just sucking up to her. At one point she was convinced he was like in love with her." A pause for effect, "My eighty year old grandmother."

"Ew."

"Yeah, ew." Positively dripping in sarcasm Emma shook her head to herself, like the old woman was literally insane..

"I don't even want to picture that."

"Anyway, soon things started taking a turn for the best, he told me all about his fictional life and how great it was and then he just vanished. Me being seventeen at the time and alone in his apartment, I had a lot of contemplating to do while he was gone for three months, and by that I mean about five minutes to get to work and return later to a locked door. I wasn't exactly pleased but eh."

"Eh?"

"Eh." She swatted the thoughts away, rolling onto her back. "I mean I loved him, but it hurt."

"It probably should have, I don't know what's wrong with me-" She began.

"Elizabeta, my story, my time, you save thinking for later." Eyeroll eyeroll, puff puff of nonexistent cigarette smoke.

"When he came back a year later my grandmother had already passed away, and my oldest brother was too busy with legal issues to come get me. I probably could have called my parents, but I liked being alone." It was the most casual tone of voice she'd took during the conversation and it quickly grew strained almost as suddenly as it began, "Somehow in the tangle of court battles courtesy of my brother Ned and father the shop left our possession. I lived upstairs for a while in that period of time, no longer allowed to open shop and just barely making any sort of rent."

"And that's when you saw him?"

"Bingo." Emma's grin seemed hollow, strained, and yet she pulled through. "He was asking people on the street about our shop, what happened to us. It was the strangest thing I'd ever seen, but for a second I was happy." She raised her arm to the ceiling as if reaching for something long gone by, the question of why she would tell a story that made her so upset beginning to settle into the air.

Even Elizabeta felt the strangulation of the question between the two, a sense of dread developing for fear of what could be next.

"I was really mind numbingly happy, you know? And for that second, just when he looked over at me and finally began to smile, I felt alive. He told me everything, you know?" An empty question. "He trusted me, took me away from home and gave me a new life. It was good for me, you know? Around that time it was really good… Suddenly I'm in the middle of nowhere two years later and I don't even know what's going on." And it was with that she cracked.

She was no longer the Emma Elizabeta had admired for the past year on the floor with the well fitting clothing and the perfect lipstick, nor the Emma Feliks had bitched about with her long drawn out cigarette smoke and far too tall heels.

She was twenty years old in a strange country and alone.

Elizabeta's arms wrapped around her in a single move, dragging her closer as Elizabeta attempted to comfort her to the best of her abilities.

"You don't even get it Elizabeta, I'm going to die." With the amount of tears? She seemed to actually believe it.

"Come on Emma, you're overacting."

Emma stared at her for only a moment before shoving her off, springing to her feet in front of her.

"I'm not. I'm really not, Elizabeta you have no clue."

"Emma, this is Antoni-"

"He was tearing up the apartment the other night." A game changer in the open, she looked stone cold to the other, as if she somehow expected her to know such a fact. "Ripping apart books, throwing down pots, he thinks there's something wrong."

_Is there something wrong?_

"Francis kinda pushed him over the edge you know, I can't even tell what he's thinking anymore."

"Has Gil been over?"

"No, not that I've seen. But the way he's been talking, it's how I ended up here." Perhaps having Feliks reschedule her agency licensing test to next week was a bad idea.

"But why Feliks?"

"Elizabeta, I think he's going back into-"

The door creaked open, Emma going rigid at the sound. If Elizabeta was the judge of it, it seemed as if every hair on Emma's body was standing up, while every hair on Feliks was just barely bristling.

"You guys okay in here? You've been up pretty late and I thought I should walk in and get you guys to bed before it's too late, it may be the weekend tomorrow but Elizabeta and I have a lot of studying to do and I'm sure Emma's got some paperwork." He was slightly irate at the hour, clad before them in pajama pants and nothing else.

If Elizabeta was crazy then she just might not have noticed the leg cover his prosthetic was lifted up a bit, as if serving to remind the rest that he was disabled now and that was the end of it.

But he's been like that since she met him.

Both Emma and Elizabeta nodded to his comment, Emma removing herself further from Elizabeta and too her own side of the bed.

"And Emma?" He asked, satisfied at their disentanglement and silent agreement. "Maybe tomorrow you should go home."

The air was about nine months pregnant and pushing the due date when she finally responded. "Yeah, maybe I should."

And all at once, story time had ended.


	7. Greenwich

Emma left the next day without so much as making eye contact, Elizabeta wasn't spared a day alone.

Test day, the day she was supposed to be waiting for all these years, the day she was hardly prepared to, the day that had been thrown haphazardly onto the nearest available day.

A Monday.

If Elizabeta could have chosen the day it would have been a nice day, like a Tuesday or a Friday, maybe a Thursday; But no, Monday.

Her and twenty five other test takers and potential agents on a Monday.

When she had no time to get coffee on the hour long drive from Feliks's house to work rather than her fifteen minute walk.

When she had no stupid boyfriend to roll over on Sunday night and suggest wild animalistic sex as stress relief so that in the end she could actually go to sleep.

No, it was a monday in which she had no coffee, had no sleep from worrying about it all weekend, had no gossip from Emma because someone had to go home, and had no patience.

So of course as a woman with all the luck in the world she ended up in an Elevator with the department head of INTELLECT once more, both late to a test taking session that she was supposed to be partaking in and he was supposed to be grading and later selecting from.

And to top it all off, Snooty Mc Priss Boots of the 'We're so smart we hardly even need guns' floor was not even looking at her but rather the door.

And that simply would not do.

"Hmpf!" She cleared her throat loudly, hoping to get some if not all of his attention during such a trying time of her life.  
>I.e. being late to the exam.<p>

"Hrmpfh!" Trying again she made an even louder noise, some how conjuring up a phlegm ball from the back of her throat that both surprised and unnerved her.

If he noticed then he chose not to comment on the fifty shades of crazy going on beside him. "It's been a while since I've seen you." He stated bluntly, still facing the door in a rather unnerving way.

"It's been a few days." She stated simply, turning from him to the door. Two could play at that game.

"A lot can change in a few days."

_A lot had_, the realization stung.

"You didn't even know I existed before, I doubt I matter even now." A frown, the struggle to remain completely calm in an elevator with a man who may hold the rest of your fate following the most catastrophic events of your life was consuming her.

"But I know now, and therefore I can't help but notice you and think about you." He shifted, slightly uncomfortable beside her as he turned to face her for the first time within the ride. "One can not seek and care for an object if one does not know it exists, that is true, however the time span one has become accustom to an object does not affect the care nor reactions sparked by said object. Best you learn that, as it seems you're testing."

"How do you know that?" It was her turn to turn to him, trying to act more bemused than startled and failing miserably. She was in an elevator with him, going to the same floor, dressed up, with a pencil and only a pencil in her hand.

Of course he knew.

But apparently that was not all.

"High heels, a sleek black outfit demoting professionality but also risk with less modesty than before, slight heat styling on your hair to correct unruly parts as indicated by the slight change in texture on certain pieces, and if you'll forgive me for being rude but you are indeed walking a little off which indicates the presence of a…," He cleared his throat, eyes darting to another corner of the room before continuing, "lesser undergarment."

If a small elevator ride next to a man who holds your future could have gotten any more awkward, the fact that he realized she was wearing a thong and was not even accustomed to them was said elevator ride plummeting down into the sole hell of elevator awkwardness and burning them up in a fire hotter than her cheeks were right now.

She practically flung herself against the other side of the elevator, embarrassingly attempting to save her dignity from any other observations he had left.

"I preferred the school teacher/Librarian esq. look if that helps, it blends in more. POWER and LUST dress like that more to suit their own attitudes and duties, they likely won't choose you. You'll most likely be placed in long term assignment or INTELLECT so I'd dress more accordingly next time." Simple, flat, not talking about her underwear; Definitely more the way she liked him.

"How do you know that? My boyfriend is head agent of POWER and his brother is head of department, I'd likely be placed there for their comfort." Smart Elizabeta, confident Elizabeta, Elizabeta that proves Glasses wrong.

"The day you rode in this Elevator with me your skirt was rumpled and tights bunching on one side, you were partaking in office romance which can sometimes be a desperate grab to reignite an extinguishing flame. If you boyfriend is head agent of POWER then not only is he hard to work with, but also, to be frank, rather unfit for you. Paired with the death of Bonnefoy? His behavior is likely more pronounced than usual. You're probably at your wit's end with him currently and couldn't stand to work with him if that was the only option." His lips quirked up into a smile at the realization that Elizabeta was currently becoming one with the wall, "If your actions stand to prove anything, it's that I'm right."

How did he know that?

"How do you know that? How do you even begin to notice those things?"

"Are we really going to have an impromptu lesson in the elevator just minutes before your test?"

"Yes!" She was screaming, oh god she had screamed at him, this man had been screamed at by her.

He had obviously made her scream at him, it was all his fault.

She tried to pull herself back together as his eyebrows slowly lowered from their position of being dangerously close to his hairline.

"Alright then, if you want to be an agent for INTELLECT then you have to take in all the facts. It's not an easy thing to do, but you likely have done it many times before." I was simple to him, like some sort of basic math problem, she was just an embarrassing child now in this situation. "You look over a woman and you turn to your friend, criticize her outfit, that's silent information gather. You notice a splotch in a spray tan, laugh a little, that's not something she likely noticed, but because you aimed to make fun of her, you noticed it."

"This sounds like you just want me to become a hyper critical teenage girl." Edelstein, head of INTELLECT, the secret floor of bitches from high schools across the globe.

If Emma was here the description would have been set, Edelstein was Regina George, and INTELLECT was the plastics.

"If that really dumbs it down for you, yes." And yet he was unimpressed. The fact that he had described it as so for nearly everyone else was almost sad and irritating at the same time.

If Roderich Edelstein had ever met Emma Peters his opinion would have been set, while an extremely smart and observant woman he would have found her extremely annoying.

_Two floors left to go._

"Anything else? Really quickly? Before we go?" She'd stepped closer to him, the discussion of observation somehow making her feel more comfortable around him, him seem more human than before.

And the weirdest part about it? The closer she got, the more comfortable he was. He seemed to ease up, pausing to think of something new rather than a handbook response. "You ask them about their wildest dreams."

"Huh?"

"People can create characters, they can memorize backgrounds and forge every document known to mankind, but you can not fake a dream. It's not something you can create on the spot, not the most wild of their dreams, something that will never come true." And there it was, the first time that he touched her. Electricity seemed to charge through her hand as his just barely brushed it, whatever remained of her breath somehow being taken away; And for a pure second, Elizabeta was on cloud nine. "No matter how much they want it to.

_Click._

The doors opened too soon, and for a second Elizabeta considered ignoring them, standing there in all of this glorious energy and brushing his hand over and over again, feeling her heart pump out of her chest with every single cell that made contact with his.

And for a second just watching him walk away and out those doors felt like watching Gilbert leave for the first time.  
>Like being awake at five in the morning and watching him go out that door not knowing if things would be the same as what they left it.<p>

It was watching Gilbert push the pin into the map in their room and knowing it also meant home despite being so far away from her and London, despite being Berlin which was located in the country that he loathed. Because it had her, didn't it? Isn't that all that matter?

It was seeing the ribbons tied around his wrist every time he came home.

It was his lips burning a hole against her back as he muttered the words onto her skin, _I just wonder if you love me too sometimes._

And for the first time when those doors shut, when she knew she'd be showing up late if even at all to the exams; She felt grief.

She felt grief and she felt guilt, because all her dreams when she was younger were being trashed and now she was this.

Because Gilbert was in love with someone else now, and she was too. Because that starry eyed girl who started years ago wanting to help change the world no longer saw Gilbert as her savior or the love of her life or some sort of deity, but because the two young adults excitedly planning their first date in the back of a stock room complete with setting alarms on their phones for the exact time of the date ended up like this.

This is the way the story of the squick and the agent ends, when them both becoming someone new.

And even though she would show up an hour late she knew the examination sheet would say it too.

Elizabeta Hedervary

Field agent recruited by INTELLECT

Approved by head Roderich Edelstein.


End file.
